Great Throughts Treasury

"There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

"There exists no greater or more painful anxiety for a man who has freed himself from all religious bias, than how he shall soonest find a new object or idea to worship."

"There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He's one of those who don't need millions, but need to resolve their thought."

"There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep; and when it has been overstepped, there is no return."

"There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding… Read more"

"There is a special feature of many in humanity - a love of torturing children, but some children. All others of the human race, these same abusers are even mildly supportive and as educated and humane European people, but love to torment the children love even the children themselves in that sense. There is insecurity-that these creatures and seduces tormentors credulity angelic child, who have nowhere to go and no one to go - that it's the fans a nasty blood torturer."

"There is no doubt that these legendary gentlemen were capable of experiencing, even to an intense degree, the sensation of fear--otherwise they would have been much calmer, and would ot have made the sense of danger into a necessity of their nature. No, but overcoming their own cowardice--that of course, was what tempted them. A ceaseless reveling in victory and the awareness that no one can be victorious over you--that was what attracted them."

"There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words."

"There is no virtue if there is no immortality."

"There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas."

"There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if we have only one good memory left in our hearts… even that may sometime be the means of saving us."

"There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless."

"There is nothing more alluring to man than freedom of conscience, but neither is there anything more agonizing."

"There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a fairly good family, pleasing presence, average education, to be not stupid, kindhearted, and yet to have no talent at all, no originality, not a single idea of one's own—to be, in fact, just like everyone else. Of such people there are countless numbers in this world—far more even than appear. They can be divided into two classes as all men can—that is, those of limited intellect, and those who are much cleverer. The former of these classes is the happier. To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving. Many of our young women have thought fit to cut their hair short, put on blue spectacles, and call themselves Nihilists. By doing this they have been able to persuade themselves, without further trouble, that they have acquired new convictions of their own. Some men have but felt some little qualm of kindness towards their fellow-men, and the fact has been quite enough to persuade them that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment and that no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have but to read an idea of somebody else's, and they can immediately assimilate it and believe that it was a child of their own brain. The impudence of ignorance, if I may use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent in such cases;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every turn. ... those belonged to the other class—to the much cleverer persons, though from head to foot permeated and saturated with the longing to be original. This class, as I have said above, is far less happy. For the clever commonplace person, though he may possibly imagine himself a man of genius and originality, none the less has within his heart the deathless worm of suspicion and doubt; and this doubt sometimes brings a clever man to despair. (As a rule, however, nothing tragic happens;—his liver becomes a little damaged in the course of time, nothing more serious. Such men do not give up their aspirations after originality without a severe struggle,—and there have been men who, though good fellows in themselves, and even benefactors to humanity, have sunk to the level of base criminals for the sake of originality.)"

"There is only one way to salvation, and that is to make yourself responsible for all men's sins. As soon as you make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that this is really so, and that you are in fact to blame for everyone and for all things."

"There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound."

"There is strength to endure everything."

"There is, indeed, nothing more annoying than to be, for instance, wealthy, of good family, nice-looking, fairly intelligent, and even good-natured, and yet to have no talents, no special faculty, no peculiarity even, not one idea of one's own, to be precisely like other people."

"There shall be time no more."

"There was a sky so deep and so clear that, to see him, one could only wonder, almost without knowing if it was true that there were, under a sky like, evil creatures and gloomy."

"There were moments when I hated everybody I came across, innocent or guilty, and looked at them as thieves who were robbing me of my life with impunity. The most unbearable misfortune is when you yourself become unjust, malignant, vile; you realize it, you even reproach yourself — but you just can't help it."

"There, in his foul, stinking cellar, our offended, down-trodden and ridiculed mouse immerses himself in cold, venomous and, chiefly, everlasting spite. For forty years on end he will remember the offence, down to the smallest and most shameful detail, constantly adding more shameful details of his own, maliciously teasing and irritating himself with his own fantasies. He himself will be ashamed of his fantasies, but nevertheless he will remember all of them, weighing them up and inventing all sorts of things that never happened to him, on the pretext that they too could have happened and he'll forgive nothing. Probably he'll start taking his revenge, but somehow in fits and starts, pettily, anonymously, from behind the stove, believing neither in his right to take revenge, nor in the success of his revenge and knowing beforehand that he will suffer one hundred times more from every single one of his attempts at revenge than the object of his revenge, who, most likely, won't give a damn."

"There’s a book here in which I read about the trial of a Jew, who took a child of four years old and cut off the fingers from both hands, and then crucified him on the wall, hammered nails into him and crucified him, and afterwards, when he was tried, he said that the child died soon, within four hours. That was ‘soon’! He said the child moaned, kept on moaning and he stood admiring it. That’s nice! Nice? Nice; I sometimes imagine that it was I who crucified him. He would hang there moaning and I would sit opposite him eating pineapple compote. I am awfully fond of pineapple compote. Do you like it? Alyosha looked at her in silence. Her pale, sallow face was suddenly contorted, her eyes burned. You know, when I read about that Jew I shook with sobs all night. I kept fancying how the little thing cried and moaned (a child of four years old understands, you know), and all the while the thought of pineapple compote haunted me. In the morning I wrote a letter to a certain person, begging him particularly to come and see me. He came and I suddenly told him all about the child and the pineapple compote. All about it, all, and said that it was nice. He laughed and said it really was nice. Then he got up and went away. He was only here five minutes. Did he despise me? Did he despise me? Tell me, tell me, Alyosha, did he despise me or not? She sat up on the couch, with flashing eyes."

"There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love, and it will curse what it has done, for there are so many germs of good in it. The soul will expand and behold how merciful God is, and how beautiful and just people are. He will be horrified, he will be overwhelmed with repentance and the countless debt he must henceforth repay."

"There's a measure in all things."

"These young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices. They fail to understand that to sacrifice five or six years of their seething youth to hard & tedious study? is utterly beyond the strength of many of them."

"These, gentlemen, are my rules: if I don't succeed, I keep trying; if I do succeed, I keep quiet; and in any case I don't undermine anyone. I'm not an intriguer, and I'm proud of it. I wouldn't make a good diplomat. They also say, gentlemen, that the bird flies to the fowler. That's true, and I'm ready to agree: but who is the fowler here, and who is the bird? That's still a question, gentlemen!"

"They ate the apple, and knew good and evil, and became 'as gods.' And they still go on eating it. But little children have not eaten anything and are not yet guilty of anything...If they, too, suffer terribly on earth, it is, of course, for their fathers; they are punished for their fathers who ate the apple--but that is reasoning from another world; for the human heart here on earth it is incomprehensible."

"They could virtuous, dignified, which aims to treat them as if the world virtuous, dignified, be experienced in a number of luminous circles, as if to show the virtuous, dignified people-humanitarian, wise-there."

"They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less."

"They have this social justification forevery nasty thing they do!"

"They may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we'll lie our way to the truth"

"They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods. They liked making songs about one another, and praised each other like children; they were the simplest songs, but they sprang from their hearts and went to one's heart. And not only in their songs but in all their lives they seemed to do nothing but admire one another. It was like being in love with each other, but an all-embracing, universal feeling."

"They sat side by side, sad and weary, like shipwrecked sailors on a deserted shore."

"They did not strive to gain knowledge of life as we strive to understand it, because their lives were full. But their knowledge was higher and deeper than the knowledge we derive from our science; for our science seeks to explain what life is and strives to understand it in order to teach others how to live, while they knew how to live without science... Oh, these people were not concerned whether I understood them or not; they loved me without it. But I knew too that they would never be able to understand me, and for that reason I hardly ever spoke to them of it. It remained somehow beyond the grasp of my reason, and yet it sank unconsciously deeper and deeper into my heart. I often told them that I had had a presentiment of it years ago and that all that joy and glory has been perceived by me while I was still back there as a nostalgic yearning, bordering at times on unendurably poignant sorrow; that I had had a presentiment of all of them and of their glory in the dreams of my heart and the reveries of my soul; and that I could often not look at the setting sun without tears. I was overpowered by the mere sensation of that dream and it alone survived in my sorely wounded heart."

"They say that gentleness tremendous strength."

"They say the sun brings life to the universe. The sun will rise and--look at it. Isn't it dead? Everything is dead. Dead men are everywhere. There are only people in the world, and all around them is silence--that's what the earth is."

"They say that people standing on a height have an impulse to throw themselves down. I imagine that many suicides and murders have been committed simply because the revolver has been in the hand. It is like a precipice, with an incline of an angle of forty-five degrees, down which you cannot help sliding, and something impels you irresistibly to pull the trigger. But the knowledge that I had seen, that I knew it all, and was waiting for death at her hands without a word - might hold her back on the incline."

"They showed me their trees, and I could not understand the intense love with which they looked at them; it was as though they were talking with creatures like themselves. And perhaps I shall not be mistaken if I say that they conversed with them. Yes, they had found their language, and I am convinced that the trees understood them. They looked at all Naturelike that — at the animals who lived in peace with them and did not attack them, but loved them, conquered by their love.They pointed to the stars and told me something about them which I could not understand, but I am convinced that they were somehow in touch with the stars, not only in thought, but by some living channel."

"They understood nothing, none of life's realities, and, I swear to you, this was what made me most indignant."

"They were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew that they would become unhappy."

"They were like two enemies in love with one another."

"They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other."

"They won't let me ... I can't be ... good!"

"This is just like admitting his crime: that no 't bore and went and confessed himself."

"This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness."

"There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God."

"This is not it, this is not it! No, this is not it at all!"

"This legend is about paradise. There was, they say, a certain thinker and philosopher here on your earth, who 'rejected all--laws, conscience faith, and, above all, the future life. He died and thought he'd go straight into darkness and death, but no--there was the future life before him. He was amazed and indignant. 'This,' he said, 'goes against my convictions.' So for that he was sentenced...I mean, you see, I beg your pardon, I'm repeating what I heard, it's just a legend...you see, he was sentenced to walk in darkness a quadrillion kilometers (we also use kilometers now), and once he finished that quadrillion, the doors of paradise would be open to him and he would be forgiven everything...Well, so this man sentenced to the quadrillion stood a while, looked, and then lay down across the road: 'I dont want to go, I refuse to go on principle!' Take the soul of an enlightened Russian atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah, who sulked in the belly of a whale for three days and three nights--you'll get the character of this thinker lying in the road...He lay there for nearly a thousand years, and then got up and started walking. What an ass! Ivan exclaimed, bursting into nervous laughter, still apparently trying hard to figure something out. isn't it all the same whether he lies there forever or walks a quadrillion kilometers? It must be about a billion years' walk! Much more, even. If we had a pencil and paper, we could work it out. But he arrived long ago, and this is where the anecdote begins. Arrived! But where did he get a billion years? You keep thinking about our present earth! But our present earth may have repeated itself a billion times; it died out, let’s say, got covered with ice, cracked, fell to pieces, broke down into its original components, again there were the waters above the firmament, then again a comet, again the sun, again the earth from the sun--all this development may already have been repeated an infinite number of times, and always in the same way, to the last detail. A most unspeakable bore... Go on, what happened when he arrived? The moment the doors of paradise were opened and he went in, before he had even been there two seconds--and that by the watch--before he had been there two seconds, he exclaimed that for those two seconds it would be worth walking not just a quadrillion kilometers, but a quadrillion quadrillion, even raised to the quadrillionth power! In short, he sang 'Hosannah' and oversweetened it so much that some persons there, of a nobler cast of mind, did not even want to shake hands with him at first: he jumped over to the conservatives a bit too precipitously. The Russian character. I repeat: it's a legend."

"These people, the minute before, do not know if you slay or not, and then, once they take a knife between their trembling hands, and feel the first jet of blood their fingers, it is no longer enough to kill you, they have you cut the head, bluntly: oops! As say the convicts. That's it!"